Behavioral Issues in Operations Management: New Trends in Design, Management, and Methodologies

244 Pages·2013·1.984 MB·English

by  Elliot Bendoly, Stefanie Eckerd (auth.), Ilaria Giannoccaro (eds.)

Behavioral Issues in Operations
Management
Ilaria Giannoccaro
Editor
Behavioral Issues
in Operations
Management
New Trends in Design, Management,
and Methodologies
123
Editor
Ilaria Giannoccaro
Department of Mechanics, Mathematics,and Management
Polytechnic University ofBari
Bari
Italy
ISBN 978-1-4471-4877-7 ISBN 978-1-4471-4878-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-4878-4
SpringerLondonHeidelbergNewYorkDordrecht
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2012955037
(cid:2)Springer-VerlagLondon2013
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Foreword
Inrecentyears,wehavewitnessedanemergingareaofresearchtermedbehavioral
operations management. Major academic journals have published special issues,
and professional societies have held conferences to communicate the exciting
developmentswithinthisnewfield.Whiletherehavebeenpreviousbookswritten
onthetopic,thecurrentbookmarksanimportantstepforwardinestablishingthis
genre of academic research.
This book focuses on the spectrum of contexts ranging from individual and
organizationalbehaviorstothebehaviorofnetworksoforganizations.Itaddresses
decision making, cognitive biases, cultural norms, organization knowledge, and
politics at the individual, organizational, and network levels. The topics of
decentralized decision making and local autonomy are considered, along with the
issues of power, conflict, trust, and equity. The recurring themes throughout this
book are the ways to positively affect the process and system dynamics across
different units of analysis. Though it is not intended to be a casual read, this is a
great reference book offering many ideas for future research and methodologies
pertaining to the exciting field of behavioral operations management.
Thomas Y. Choi
Bob Herberger Arizona Heritage Chair
Director, Center for Supply Networks
Arizona State University
v
Contents
1 Behavioral OM Experiments: Critical Inquiry Reawakening
Practical Issues in Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Elliot Bendoly and Stefanie Eckerd
2 Complex Systems Methodologies for Behavioural Research
in Operations Management: NK Fitness Landscape. . . . . . . . . . . 23
Ilaria Giannoccaro
3 Trust in Face-to-Face and Electronic Negotiation
in Buyer–Supplier Relationships: A Laboratory Study. . . . . . . . . 49
Rossella Moramarco, Cynthia Kay Stevens
and Pierpaolo Pontrandolfo
4 Lean Supply Chains: A Behavioral Perspective—Examples from
Packaging Supply Chains in the FMCG Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Pauline Found
5 Supply Chain Integration: A Behavioral Study
Using NK Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Ilaria Giannoccaro
6 Cognitive Biases, Heuristics, and Overdesign: An Investigation
on the Unconscious Mistakes of Industrial Designers
and on Their Effects on Product Offering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Valeria Belvedere, Alberto Grando and Boaz Ronen
7 Incentives in Organizations: Can Economics and Psychology
Coexist in Human Resources Management? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Ugo Merlone
vii
viii Contents
8 Incentives for Cost Transparency Implementation:
A Framework from an Action Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Pietro Romano and Marco Formentini
9 Learning on the Shop Floor: The Behavioural Roots
of Organisational Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
John D. Hanson
10 Behavioral Decision-Making and Network Dynamics:
A Political Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Francesco Zirpoli, Luisa Errichiello and Josh Whitford
11 Markets of Logistics Services: The Role of Actors’ Behavior
to Enhance Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Nicola Bellantuono, Gregory E. Kersten and Pierpaolo Pontrandolfo
About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Introduction
Behavioural Operations Management (BOM) has been identified in the last years
as one of the most promising emerging fields in Operations Management (OM)
(Bendolyetal.2006;GinoandPisano2008;LochandWu2007).BOMexplicitly
studies the effects of human behaviour on the performances of operating systems
and analyses strategies to improve them (Gino and Pisano 2008; Loch and Wu
2007). In particular, BOM explores deviations from rationality of the decision
makers involved in the management of operating systems including factors
affectingtheirbehavior(Siemsen2009),withtheaimsfirstlyofprovidingabetter
understanding of how operating systems work and perform, and secondly of
developing effective implications for the design, management, and improvement
of operating systems (Gino and Pisano 2008).
TwomainaspectscharacterizeBOMresearch:oneisreferringtothechoiceof
the appropriate research methodology and concerns the unresolved tension
between modelling and empirical studies; the other regards its multi-disciplinary
nature, encompassing many different disciplines among which organizational
behavior, decision science, behavioral decision making, psychology, and man-
agement.
Thebookisorganizedtoaccountforthesetwoaspectswiththetwo-foldaimto
frame the state of the art of the field and to offer innovative contributions and
inspirationsformovingbeyondthetraditionalissues.Therefore,thebookhasbeen
thoughttoprovideanupdateontheestablishedresearchmethodologiesaswellas
somesuggestionsfortheapplicationofnewmethodologiesparticularlypromising
for the topic. Furthermore, I have collected studies in various fields authored by
leadingscholarscomingfromdifferentareassoastoofferanextendedviewofthe
behavioral factors influencing OM.
The book comprises 11 chapters. The first two chapters explicitly address the
methodological aspect. In the chapter ‘‘Behavioural OM Experiments: Critical
Inquiry Reawakening Practical issues in Research’’, Bendoly and Eckerd outline
the opportunities made available in the OM literature through experimental
ix
x Introduction
behaviors.Theyanalyzethedifferentoptionsavailabletoexperimentaldesign,i.e.,
vignette, process simulation, and experimental design, and discuss the main fea-
tures,thebenefits,andthelimitationsofeachmethod.Theyconcludedealingwith
the most interesting contributions resulting from experimentation and suggesting
future research directions.
In the chapter ‘‘Complex Systems Methodologies for Behavioural Research in
Operations Management: NK Fitness Landscape’’, Giannoccaro expands the tra-
ditional set of research methodologies used in BOM by including a complexity
science tool, i.e., NK fitness landscape. She first discusses the opportunities for
doing successful BOM research made available by adopting complexity science
andthenexplainshowNKfitnesslandscapemaybeemployedtosimulatedifferent
OM contexts and which research questions may be addressed.
The subsequent contributors examine how specific behavioral factors (trust,
cognitivecapacity,andmotivation)affectthedesignandmanagementofcomplex
operating systems at the various dimensional levels, i.e., shopfloor, firm, and
networkoffirm.HowthesefactorsaffectdecisionmakinginmultipleOMcontexts
are also investigated, including logistics, supply chain management, purchasing,
and human resource management.
In particular, two papers analyze the role of trust. In the chapter ‘‘Trust in
Face-To-Face and Electronic Negotiation in Buyer–Supplier Relationships: A
Laboratory Study’’, Moramarco, Stevens, and Pontrandolfo investigate whether
havingtrustingrelationshipswiththesupplierscanpositivelyaffectoutcomesand
strengthen the relationship even when electronic mechanisms are used for pur-
chasing. They conduct a laboratory study which compares three negotiation
mechanisms (i.e., face-to-face negotiation, e-mail negotiation, and e-reverse auc-
tion).
In the chapter ‘‘Lean Supply Chain: A behavioural Perspective: Examples
from Packaging Supply Chains in the FMCG Sector’’, Found highlights the
importance of trust, power, and equity in implementing JIT operations and lean
relationshipmanagement.Byconductingacasestudyinthepackagingsector,she
shows that trust is an important element to sustain high-performance JIT opera-
tionsandleanrelationshipsmanagementandthatstrongsupplyrelationshipsbased
on mutual trust and equity are a prerequisite for a successful implementation of
lean supply chains.
A further behavioral factor addressed in the book is related to the cognitive
limitations of the decision makers. In the chapter ‘‘Supply Chain Integration:
A Behavioural Study Using NK Simulation’’, Giannoccaro investigates the extent
towhichthecognitiveabilitiesandtheresistancetochangeofthedecisionmaker
influences the effectiveness of an integrated management approach of the supply
chain. She conducts a simulationstudyusing the NK fitness landscape and shows
thatthecomplexityofthesupplychainisafactorstrengtheningtheimpact ofthe
decision maker behavior on the performance.
Introduction xi
In the chapter ‘‘Cognitive Biases, Heuristics and Overdesign: An Investigation
on the Unconscious Mistakes of Industrial Designers and on their Effects on
Product Offering’’ by Belvedere, Grando, and Ronen, the effects of diverse cog-
nitive biasesof decision makers are investigated inthe context of product design.
Thecasualrelationshipbetweencognitivebiasesandoverdesignisthenpostulated
and tested.
The problem of motivation and of the accurate design of the incentives for
stimulating more effective decision maker behavior is investigated by two other
papers.
In the chapter ‘‘Incentives in Organizations of Operating Systems: Can
EconomicsandPsychologyCoexistinHumanResourcesManagement?’’,Merlone
highlights that human behavior should be included for designing successful con-
tracts. By illustrating how two disciplines, Economics and Psychology, address
Human Resource Management, he suggests interesting approaches for building
effective contracts also dealing with complexity.
In the chapter ‘‘Incentives for Cost Transparency Implementation: A
Framework from an Action Research’’, Romano e Formentini conduct an action
researchaimedatdevelopingaframeworkusefultoidentifytheappropriateforms
of incentives to stimulate suppliers to share cost information.
The last three contributions extend the traditional OM contexts in which the
effects of the behavioral issues are usually analyzed. In the chapter ‘‘Learning
ontheShopFloor:TheBehaviouralRootsofOrganisationalKnowledge’’,Hanson
proposesaninterestingbehavioralviewoftheorganizationalknowledge,whichis
particularly useful for its implications on knowledge management and learning.
Inthechapter‘‘BehaviouralDecision-MakingandNetworkDynamics:APolitical
Perspective’’, Zirpoli, Errichiello and Whitford shed light on the mechanisms
underlyingthefunctioningofthenetworkasaformofgovernancebyproposinga
theoretical model in which the network is view as a political coalition. They
underline the central role played by power and politics in shaping the firm’
organizational boundaries. Their model is particularly interesting for its implica-
tions on vertical integration and outsourcing.
Finally, in the chapter ‘‘Markets of Logistics Services: The Role of Actors’
Behaviour to Enhance Performance’’, Bellantuono, Kersten, and Pontrandolfo
develop a simulation model of the decision-making process in a logistic system
organized as a market with the aim to identify appropriate strategies to enhance
coordination among actors. They show that such strategies recommending to
select, enrich, and modify information exchanged by actors need to be designed
andimplementedbytakingintoaccountbehavioralissuesrelatedtothesubjective
social perceptions and the expectations of the decision makers regarding them-
selves, the counterpart, and the context in which the transaction occurs.
Ilaria Giannoccaro
xii Introduction
References
E. Bendoly, K. Donohue, K. Schultz, Behavior in operations management:
assessing recent findings and revisiting old assumptions. J. Oper. Manag. 24,
737–752 (2006)
F.Gino,G.Pisano,Towardatheoryofbehaviouraloperations.Manuf.Serv.Oper.
Manag. 10, 676–691 (2008)
C.H. Loch, Y. Wu, Behavioral Operations Management (Now Publishers Inc.,
Hanover, 2007)
E. Siemens, That thing called Be-OP’s. POMS Chronicle 16(1), 12–13 (2009)